


Parting Ways

by DemiurgicDabbling



Series: The Stagnant City [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, touch adversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 05:36:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21094247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemiurgicDabbling/pseuds/DemiurgicDabbling
Summary: When a city never wakes, it never sleeps. When it never dreams, it never sees. Seth has long grown tired of the game, and seeks higher ground. And before he goes, he shares one more moment with his dear friend, Macy, who knows what he's really afraid of.





	Parting Ways

**Author's Note:**

> An old piece I wrote while trying to block out characters.

Seth didn’t consider himself a good person. Not by a long shot. He knew his goals were selfish, cowarderly, perhaps, and he didn’t try to convince anyone otherwise. 

Well, no. That was a lie. 

His work required a certain persona. An outward expression of what others wanted to see, not what was actually there. This stagnant city smelled of rot, lies, and standing water, and it loved facades of exactly what it wanted to see. A spark of hope, unwavering, just waiting for the moment the capricious, long, long nights found it fit to snuff it out. Rather than hope himself, unrealistically struggling to cling onto embers that smolder and smoke and smother, he saw it for what it was. 

“What are you so afraid of, anyways?”

Macy curled a finger through her stark, dark, kinky hair, taking a bite of some sugary, cold treat she’d ordered. Dark eyes peered up at him, a smidge of sweet white smudged across her dark, upper lip. 

Seth thought her much like a shadow. Quiet and unassuming, when she wished it, but well-listening. She was a good person, as far as he understood it. Sometimes she could be loud, a black-light washed out over white. 

“Not a thing.” 

He tapped his own upper lip, and she took the hint, grabbing her napkin and cleaning herself. Still, she fixed him with that crucifying gaze, unbelieving him. The harsh incandescent light painted her in shades of ugly yellow, and he grimaced at the way his own hands looked to himself in this light. 

“Why don’t I believe you?”

Seth laughed, something a little bitter, something a little tired. Running his finger around the edge of his glass, cool condensation chased itself in droplets down the side. 

“Riddle me that, then, Magpie.”

“Is it because you don’t believe you?”

It was his turn to fix her with a look, which only earned himself a snorted chuckle. 

“You clearly don’t know me that well, then.”

“You’re right. I know you better.”  
A silence passed between them, filled with him nursing his glass of water as he watched a crack in the opposing wall grow ever longer. And her, watching his expression pass between indifference, frustration, and distaste. Balancing a little red fruit on the edge of her spoon, she rested her chin in her hand.

Sometimes even she wondered if he was able to catch that runaway train of thought. She could watch the way the gears turned in his head. And if she was a shadow, then he was a light. A sulky light that clung, coyed, and coated everything. Blinding anyone that stared a bit too long, and obscured anything under it, bleaching it out.

“You know you don’t have to go, right?”

His gaze flicked down from the wall, to her face, then back away again, instead finding some dull amusement in watching litter blow down the street. No answer.

“You know what will happen to you if you leave, right?”

Seth remained silent, smushing his cheek into his palm. Gold eyes cast gentle light over the highs of his cheeks, just like the rest of his kind. His silver hair was different though. Not quite as shocking as some of the colors she’d seen, but it fit him aptly, she thought. Everything about him was pale, washed out, almost. 

“When did you cut your hair?”

He peered back at her, and, absent from his own thoughts, reached back to card his fingers through the springy, silver locks. The edges were ragged, with a few stray hairs having escaped the blade. 

“When I woke up. I had split ends, so I figured it was high time I did something about it.”

“That’s why you decided today was the day to go too, wasn’t it?”

Tangible weight settled in that moment, and without another word, he nodded. Macy didn’t press any further, so with one final bite, she popped the little red fruit in her mouth and set her spoon down. She rested her arms on the back of her chair, lips set in a thin line. 

Macy waved their server over and paid for herself and Seth. 

“You want someone to walk with you over to the edge?”

“Nah.”

“Can I come anyways?”  
He stood up, brushing off his coat and flicking his cuffs, straightening himself out before he glanced over his shoulder at her. His answer settled heavy on his tongue, and she knew it before he said it. 

“No. I’m going alone. You know what Gyrrus will do if he catches wind that you helped me. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Biting the inside of her cheek, she shrugged and stood up herself, tucking her hands into her pockets and finding her stride right in beside him. The door creaked open, rusty hinges and old stone heavy, heavier when the wind caught them. They came to their fork in the road, one way leading back to the theater and another to the city limits.

“Your last meal down here was water then, huh?”

“Maybe it was my last meal, period.”

Macy gave a bark of laughter, patting his shoulder without a second thought. Her hand settled heavily on the padded shoulder of his coat, and before he could stop himself, he shoved her palm away and took two paces back. She gave a start, but she wasn’t all that surprised.

“...Still not comfortable with that?”

He shook his head, reaching up and resting his own hand over where hers just was. 

She didn’t speak again, and instead, reached into the pocket of her overstuffed coat. It wasn’t much, but maybe it would come in handy for him. Who knows what was beyond the limit, after all.

Holding her palm out to him, downturned, he accepted, if out of nothing but curiosity. Into his hand, she set down a blue and pink lighter. A glass tube on the side set full with softly glowing cyan liquid fuel. 

“Huh.” He remarked, giving it a little shake and watching bubbles rise to the surface and pop. “Didn’t you steal this?”

“Yeah, but what don’t I steal?”

“Pfft, you have a point, Magpie.”

He pocketed it for the time being, but kept his hands tucked into his too-thin jacket. He ran his thumb over the side of it, soothing himself just a bit.

“Will you be able to keep the place afloat without me?”  
She tugged her hood up over her hair, just a puff of her tight curls sticking out the top. The wind kicked up, tearing up dust and black leaves. 

“We kept it up before you came, right?”

He couldn’t argue with that, but now, he was just stalling. Already he could feel his tailbone tingle and itch. 

“See ya.”

“See you around, Apple boy.”

Even if he wanted to change his mind, he couldn’t now. His footsteps followed, dim, towards the edge of their little island. Upheld by roots thousands of years old, over a standing lake. Into the dark, into the distance, he took up Macy’s lighter and flicked it on, but the light only went so far. 

He told himself not to look, but he never listens. And just behind him, he saw the goliath tree whose leaves never shed, who’s roots would never rot, and who’s blindness would never settle. Somehow he felt no remorse, only a hollow sense of victory inlaid with some mixed idea of… something, someone, maybe, could call hope.

Seth didn’t consider himself a good person. Not by a long shot. His goals were selfish, cowardly even. But at least he had something to aim for. The stagnant city would hold him no longer.


End file.
